When you first launch Vienna Imperial, it comes up in Basic mode, which simply allows you to select the microphone position: Close, Player, or Distant. But there are also a couple of menus worth exploring before you simply select a mic position and go on your way. In the upper right of the window is a menu labeled "Load Samples R S." The R and S stand for "Release Samples" and "Soft Pedal Samples." Selections in this menu allow you to omit either or both of these sample sets if you're a bit shy of the recommended amount of RAM. On the left side of the window is the "Factory Presets" menu, which contains not only the three basic mic positions, but nine other presets involving even more mic positions, and equalization and reverberation settings.

If you're just a bit more adventurous (you know you have to try it), you can select the Advanced view, which reveals individual settings for Equalization, Midi Sensitivity, Octave Shift (remember that you have nine extra notes below the normal 88-key range), Transpose, Reverb settings, Dynamic Range, Sympathetic level, Pedal Noise, Stereo Width, and Tuning. In this view you can experiment with different settings and save your favorites to the presets menu.